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February 28, 2000

Justice unable to find bids worth $5.2 billion

By George Archibald

THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The Justice Department, defending housing Secretary Andrew M. Cuomo against efforts to force his testimony in a bid-rigging case, told a federal judge that bids are missing for government housing auctions worth $5.2 billion.

The claim in court affidavits 10 days ago is now disputed by Mr. Cuomo's spokesman at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. He said disputed bids were seized more than two years ago by investigators for Susan M. Gaffney, the agency's inspector general, as part of an ongoing criminal probe of multibillion-dollar contract fraud and bid-rigging in HUD's auctions of defaulted federally subsidized housing properties.

The criminal investigation has not resulted in any prosecutions to date. The IG has declined to comment, saying the probe is still under way.

But left in the middle of administration finger pointing is a frustrated and angry HUD contractor, Bethesda, Md.-based Ervin & Associates, which has sued HUD for multibillion-dollar fraud in defaulted housing sales.

It has asked District of Columbia Judge Emmet G. Sullivan to sort out whether a cover-up is under way  now assisted by criminal investigators appointed by President Clinton.

"Susan Gaffney is asleep at the switch or they're being told to kill this thing," said HUD contractor whistleblower John Ervin, who has used a four-year federal lawsuit and the Freedom of Information Act to extract evidence of HUD mismanagement and wrongdoing.

"They aren't stupid. There's a cover-up going on."

The tug-of-war over bid records involves Mr. Ervin's claim that Hamilton Securities Group, HUD's fired contractor for six housing mortgage auctions valued at $5.2 billion, improperly awarded most of the properties to Wall Street investment firm Goldman Sachs & Co. and its partners, among the biggest contributors in the current and past presidential campaigns.

(the rest of the story appears at newsmax.com)

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...and we thought Goldman-Sachs was only involved in gold market manipulation.

-- TM (mercier7@pdnt.com), February 29, 2000

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Doesn't surprize me know It realy doesn't!

-- ET (bneville@zebra.net), February 29, 2000.